I am shocked that this thread died after only two posts. Oh well, time to pitch in.

Of the various Gundam games out there, I only played three. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 already has its own thread, so I'm not going to dither about it here.

Next was Gundam vs Zeta Gundam, basically a massively beefed up version of what referred to. Or to be more exact, it's two games, Federation VS Zeon plus AEUG VS Titans, packed into one game. However, it's actually much more than that: instead of just playing through the OYW or the Gryps Conflict as a nameless pilot, GvsZG's campaign mode has the canon characters go through a variety of alternate timelines diverging off canon at various points. For example:

On Kamille's canon route, preventing Four from dying at Kilimanjaro unlocks an alternate route where Four defects to the AEUG, pilots the Super Gundam alongside Kamille and ultimately saves him from Scirocco's Mind Rape.

Completing this route unlocks Amuro's OYW route, where he has the opportunity to prevent Lalah's death. Doing so unlocks an alternate Gryps Conflict where Amuro is one of the AEUG's founding members and his rapport with the organization gives the AEUG a head start when compared to canon, allowing them to defeat the Titans without suffering a Total Party Kill. In fact, successfully repelling the Titans' assault on Von Braun in another timeline split weakens the Titans enough that the AEUG captures Gryps and wipes out the Titans early, allowing them to concentrate on Axis and claim total dominance over the Earth sphere. Oh, and Kamille gets the ZZ Gundam.

On Jerid's canon route, having Lila survive makes his ending slightly better. Having Mouar survive too unlocks an even better ending, which in turn unlocks the OYW routes of the three Titans pilots who canonically fought there. Having Lalah surviving in all three results in the Federation acquiring Zeon's Newtypes and Newtype research, allowing the Titans to create stable Cyber-Newtypes to bolster their efforts with. Just like in the AEUG routes, it is possible to wipe out the AEUG early in Operation Apollo (which the AEUG canonically foiled) and go all-out against Axis.

In the Axis equivalent of these routes, Garma, Ramba Ral and Dozle all survive the OYW and make it to Axis, giving Axis sorely needed manpower and resources it lacked in canon. On this route, Axis returns to the Earth sphere early and takes the place of the AEUG. Oh, and in this route, Kamille and Amuro are with the Titans. Oh, and Char has a red Hyaku Shiki.

And then there are the main attractions of the game: the special scenarios.

Completing all three factions' total victory routes unlocks an alternate ending to the OYW, where Lalah survives the battle of Solomon. In the battle of A Baoa Qu, Amuro and Sayla engage Char and Lalah in a two-on-two but during the shootout, Sayla is killed by Lalah. Amuro promptly flips the fuck out and kills Lalah in return. With Amuro and Char now having deadly grudges against each other, Char takes command of Axis and, upon returning to the Earth sphere seven years later, promptly starts Char's Counterattack ahead of schedule. In the meantime, Amuro has taken Kamille as his pupil; however, while the two are trying to stop Char and Haman from dropping Luna II on Kilimanjaro, Haman kills Kamille. So in the final showdown over Axis, Judau is now Amuro's wingman instead.

In a side branch of the Newtype-research-accelerated Titans route, Amuro finds out that Lalah is enjoying the hospitality of the Augusta Newtype Labs and transfers there as a test subject himself, resulting in the two joining the Titans. One highlight is Kacricon warning Amuro to watch his altitude during the pre-Jaburo reentry battle, only for Amuro to remind him that he's a OYW veteran and knows this stuff already.

In yet another special scenario, Garma and Dozle personally leading Zeon's invasion of Earth in the OYW unlocks a branch where M'Quve successfully holds on to Odessa, allowing Zeon to launch a counterattack and take Jaburo, forcing the Federation to sign a cease-fire treaty that heavily favors Zeon. During the next seven years, the Federation conducts a secret arms buildup aimed at launching a counterattack, codenamed Project Zeta. Zeon eventually discovers what's going on and it's the OYW all over again, except with Zeta-era technology. Highlights include Ramba Ral's famous No Zaku line while he's in a Marasai, the Black Tri-Stars riding Psyco Gundams (yes, plural), Dozle himself having his last stand behind the controls of the Psyco Gundam Mk II and the White Base crew flying around on the Argama.

This game is fricken' awesome. The only problem I have with it is that the AI completely disregards the fact that friendly fire is always on, resulting in situations like the one in the Youtube Let's Play by aulddragon, where he lost the same mission six times in a row due to his AI wingman repeatedly getting teamkilled by his One-Hit KillWave Motion Gun.

The third Gundam game I ever played was MS Saga: A New Dawn. I'm not exactly an RPG fanatic, but I love the sheer number of customization options available. I mean, GM with a Gouf's shoulders and a Dom's legs? And it gives massive stat boosts as well? Hell yes.

And I'd really like to see a fanfic/novelization of this. Been thinking of making one myself, but I feel I don't know enough about the characters to do it.

If only the English version of MS Saga didn't have that terrible terrible voice acting. Boy I would love a PS2 classics for it though but that will never happen seeing how it was the worst selling Gundam game ever even in Japan.

You know... I've been considering making a Gundam turn-based strategy game for over a year now. I don't have any graphical resources like sprites and such (aside from what I can rip from the internet), but the coding I'm able to do by myself.

I'm also writing the game to be moddable to some extent, mostly in the form of adding new MS types. You could theoretically add any mecha into the game if you write its class and slap it into the proper folder.

I only have a very basic framework of the game engine done so far, written in Java. Do you have any ideas regarding stuff like damage calculation and such? Until I have a better alternative, I'm using the SPECIAL system's DT/DR armor model, for the simple reason that that's the only one I know the inner workings of.

In regards to the OP's question as to why Mobile Ops: The One Year War never saw release stateside, I'd guess it might have something to do with the lackluster graphics, or maybe poor review scores. Because just as pointed out, the gameplay does seem to have similarities to the Battlefield franchise, which would only help with it's P.R.

...But then again, just as pointed out by another troper, maybe the game genuinely was good but never saw release due to being released by a company that never bothers with foreign releases. In fact, there's a ton of Gundam games out there nobody's ever heard of which may have the chance to become smash hits stateside, but because Japanese companies don't want to take the risk or think arcades are dead they see no reason to create a port.

Would you believe I never fully watched the original Indiana Jones trilogy? I gotta correct that someday.

I've been doing that for two months and have now gotten to the point where I can read hiragana, so I've been considering taking a look at what the Japanese market has to offer. I'm especially interested in getting Alliance vs ZAFT II.

Extre VS Force is getting localized! Also, two new games have been announced: SD Gundam G Generation Genesis and Gundam Breaker 3.

I'm a bit annoyed that the VS Force announcement comes just late enough that I can't cancel my Play-Asia pre-order of the Japanese version. Still, I'm glad to see another Gundam game come over and maybe open a chance for more. Guess I'll just enjoy this one early and wait just a bit post-release for future games.

I've been playing G Generation Overworld a good bit lately, so I'm looking forward to Genesis despite the lineup being solely early UC.

I love the Gundam Breaker series and it looks like Barbatos and more customization are in the new one. Not much else to say about these two games right now, I guess.

The system doesn't know you right now, so no post button for you. You need to Get Known to get one of those.

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